Accidentally injured a patient what should i do to protect myself?

[u/Disastrous-Panda-652]

Throwaway for privacy. Today at the emergency department was extremely busy, with only me, the senior resident, and the attending working. And then suddenly, the ambulance called and informed us that there was an accident involving three individuals, and they would be bringing them to us, all in unstable condition. When they arrived, the attending informed me that I had to handle the rest of the emergencies alone, from A to Z since he and the senior will be managing the trauma cases. And i only should call him when the patient is in cardiac arrest.

After they went to assess the trauma cases, approximately 30 minutes later, a patient brought by ambulance complaining of chest pain with multiple risk factors for PE and her Oxygen saturation between 50-60%. I couldn't perform a CT scan for her due to her being unstable so I did an echocardiogram instead looking for RV dilation.

Afterward, i decided to administer tPa and luckily 40mins her saturation started improving reaching 75-85%.

However, that’s where the catastrophe occured, approximately after 40mins post tPa her BP dropped to 63/32 and when i rechecked the patient chart turned out i confused her with another patient file and she actually had multiple risk factors for bleeding. She is on multiple anticoagulant, had a recent major surgery.

And due to her low BP i suspected a major bleeding and immediately activated the massive transfusion protocol as soon as I activated it, the attending overheard the code announcement and came to me telling me what the fuck is happening?

I explained to him what happened and the went to stabilize the patient she required an angioembolization luckily she is semi-stable now and currently on the ICU.

And tomorrow i have a meeting with the committee and i’m extremely anxious about what should i do and say?

[u/MusicSavesSouls → u/[deleted]]

A physician in training.

[u/NinjaKing928 → u/[deleted]]

It’s a throwaway I thought ?

[u/chantillylace9 → u/[deleted]]

Did they delete their history now?

[u/Murky_Indication_442 → u/[deleted]]

What would be the difference? If it was a PA or NP it would be because they are dangerously incompetent., but if it was a resident it just was a mistake anyone could make? Sort of like when someone wants to know if the patient was seen by a neurosurgeon or just a neurologist?

[u/Murky_Indication_442 → u/[deleted]]

I dont think it matters bc this was a system problem, not just a provider problem. Also, the outcome is the same, regardless. But that being said, If it was a mid level working independently as you suspect, they wouldn’t have been under the supervision of the attending therefore there wouldn’t have been the need to mention the attending said not to call them and that they were in the unusual position of seeing patients on their own. This would be a non issue bc they would just be doing what they do. Their practice wouldn’t have any involvement with the senior resident, or be affected by what they were doing at all. Also, I don’t think someone, regardless of training would have done something so unusual if this was their routine regular day to day job. And I’ll probably get hate for this, but I doubt a mid level would have the balls to just go push TPA on someone in that scenario. If they did, they would have had problem before that. The whole story is crazy and doesn’t even sound real. Btw- I’m sorry, I insulted you. That was wrong of me. It just sounded like you were trying to use the situation to push forth a different agenda than the issue at hand.